In recent years, devices which execute wireless communication on the basis of the IEEE standards (IEEE Std 802.11-1999 (R2003)) for wireless LANs have widely prevailed.
In general, the communication modes of wireless LANs can be broadly classified into an infrastructure mode and an ad hoc mode. The former is a communication mode in which there exists a plurality of wireless communication apparatuses having a station (STA) function and a wireless communication apparatus having an access point (AP) function. The latter is a communication mode in which there exists a plurality of wireless communication apparatuses having the STA function and the apparatuses directly communicate with each other without the intervention of a wireless communication apparatus having the AP function.
In either of the communication modes, it is possible to recreate an original network after a formed network is separated and the separated network disappears.
If, for example, it is required to execute communication while reserving a band, a communication apparatus having both the AP and STA functions can transit to an AP mode, and form a new network with a communication apparatus having the STA function (network separation). Furthermore, after the desired communication ends, the communication apparatus can reconnect to an original network (network disappearance and recreation).
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-135965 discloses a wireless communication scheme which integrates two different networks into one network in the ad hoc mode. According to this patent reference, by providing a communication means for determining channel settings for each host in the two networks, it is possible to recreate one integrated network from the two different networks after selecting an appropriate channel.
However, as the reconfiguration of the network topology is repeated by network separation, disappearance, and recreation as described above, it becomes difficult to manage the resources of the networks, such as channels and bands.